The Pirate Queen Of Biscayne Bay
by Nova Adams
Summary: Good old Captain Jack meets a modern-day pirate and gets in a lot of trouble.
1. Coke and Rum

Notes: This story was written entirely for the sheer pleasure of seeing myself as a modern-day pirate and of watching good old Captain Jack stumble and swagger through modern-day Miami. Small debts are owed to the Gerow and Friedman families for taking me out on the Great Lakes to water-ski and dock-hop; a slightly larger debt is also owed to the five-year-olds who christened me "Sarafeena" at a Traverse City resort and then insisted that I tow their inflatable rafts; the rest of the very small debt is owed to Dave Barry, without whose colorful descriptions of Miami and Bimini I wouldn't have thought of this fic. 

Soundtrack: "Vanessa Mae the Violin Player" by Vanessa Mae, "Loud Fast and Hard" by the Ramones, and assorted Jimmy Buffet songs. 

Sarafeena Detroit tossed the last bale on board the deck of her vessel, the _Flying Weasel. Most of her colleagues had to deal with secret compartments, which was a hassle if you forgot to clean out the bilge, because then the merchandise would get wet and ruined. You had to spend most of your profits on pumps and such if you used a secret compartment, especially if your boat was old. _

Sarafeena's boat was, in fact, quite old. It wasn't meant for the open sea; the man who she bought it from used it to putter around on the bays of Lake Michigan. But she had fixed it up quite well, and now it was one of the seaworthiest vessels you could find. 

Her brisk trade was the envy of her friends. Well…not that she had any friends, but the acquaintances she'd made in the business. While everyone else had to struggle with secret compartments and bribes going through Customs, she used her own methods. 

She twisted the throttle. The _Weasel_'s Zodiac engine sputtered to life as she headed out to sea, spraying oily water in her wake. 

Captain Jack Sparrow had just woken up. He had a bad hangover, and the first time he saw the tiny boat zipping along like a dolphin, he was sure he was imagining things. 

He poked Anna Maria in the ribs. "Hey Anna. Anna!" he whispered hoarsely. 

She glared at him. "I'm not steering for you if that's what you're thinking. If you drank all that rum last night you've got no one to blame but yourself." 

He shook his head. "S'not that. Look over there." 

Anna squinted. "What are you showing me? I don't see…" Her eyes widened. "What in the name of Baron Samedi is that?" 

"Looks like a boat." Jack left the wheel and leaned over the edge. 

As the strange little boat came into view, he could see…well, he assumed it was the captain. Long brown frizzy hair whipped into dreadlocks by sand and days of not washing, blue denim breeches cut off at the knees and a stained white tunic with the familiar Jolly Roger symbol painted on it in black. Definitely a woman—not surprising, there were plenty of female buccaneers. 

What was surprising was her boat. There were no sails and he couldn't see how she was steering it. It was going faster than any boat he'd ever seen before. 

Sarafeena was making good time. She had popped her treasured "Jimmy Buffet and the Beatles—Live!" tape into the deck and was singing along with it. She'd picked up a few bottles of Captain Morgan's Spiced Rum and some pistachios at the little general store in Bimini. 

"We all live in—" she gulped the liquor "—a yellow submarine. We hate the stupid thing. We—" another gulp "—want to paint it green." 

"AHOY!" Sarafeena twisted her head around, trying to figure out where the shout came from. 

It was a pirate ship, one of the old ones you usually saw in Disney films and tourist traps. The hull was made of dark, weathered wood, and the sails were black and tattered. 

"Shit, not another fucking ghost ship," she muttered. The last time she'd had to deal with something like this was that run-in with the _Marie Celeste. Her propensity for pistachio nuts had saved her then; it was a little-known fact that the shells of white pistachios could fend off ghosts. _

She checked the plastic bag that sat beside her on the pleather seat of the boat. The pistachios were red. So much for that. 

Of course, there was the possibility that it was another one of those tourist boats. But she was in the middle of the 17th century; no tourists there, unless her genius ex-boyfriend Daniel had sold another one of those nifty little temporal displacement devices to an unusually entrepreneurial cruise line. Besides, the ship was creaking and she could see rats. No self-respecting travel agency would stand for rats in their ships. 

She squinted back at the ship. "Ahoy yourself. Who the hell are you?" 

"Captain Jack Sparrow of the _Black Pearl_," yelled the raggedy figure standing on the deck. "Who're you, then?" 

"Sarafeena Detroit of the _Flying Weasel_. I'd call myself a captain but I have no crew." She steered the boat closer to the side of the huge ship. "It's great to meet ya, Captain Jack. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a huge shipment of coke to deliver to some Don Johnson wannabe in Biscayne Bay." 

"A what-a-what?" The captain looked extremely confused. Sarafeena had to admit that it was a cute look on him. 

He was quite an attractive guy, in a sexually ambiguous Keith Richards sort of way. The beaded hair was a very nice bohemian touch, and only the gayest goth would ever dare to smear kohl around their eyes the way this guy did. 

It was too bad she couldn't meet men like this every day. 

Jack stared at the bottle that Sarafeena had just given him. "S'nice. And you said this is rum?" He took an experimental swig. It wasn't as strong as the rotgut he was used to, but it had a very smooth flavor. 

"Sure is," said the lone captainess. "Of course, you can't get it around here." 

Jack examined the bottle closely. "And who's the picture of? Looks a little like me, but with nicer clothes." 

"A fictional character," Sarafeena explained. "Some ad agency made him up. It's their idea of what a pirate should be like." 

"Ad agency, eh? What do they do?" Sarafeena had been explaining futuristic concepts to Jack for several hours. He could grasp the concept of time travel quite easily; it made a lot of sense to him. A lot of what Sarafeena was telling him didn't add up, though. 

First, she had attempted to explain her cargo. "You've heard of the coca leaf that the Mayans chew?" 

Jack had nodded. "Tried it once." 

"Well, this white powder is made from that leaf. You're not allowed to bring it into the country. What you do is you snort a bunch of it up your nose, and you get high." She'd offered Jack some of it. He got the hang of it after a while. Oddly enough, the sensation that the powdered coca brought seemed natural to him. Maybe, he thought, it was from all the rum, or spending too much time in the sun. Then again, it might be because he was Captain Jack Sparrow. Yes, he liked that explanation best. 

"In the future," Sarafeena had gone on, "America is a country that guards her borders very closely. The border starts at Florida, where there's a city called Miami. There are a lot of people there who would pay a lot of money for some of this stuff. But the border guards inspect all the ships to make sure they're not bringing in any of this stuff." 

She held up an interesting device. "This sends my boat back to this time. There aren't any border guards here, so I can sail into Biscayne Bay and then send it back into the future." 

"So you make this stuff yourself, do you?" Jack wondered if she'd share the recipe. 

Sarafeena shook her head. "No. There's a Colombian guy who makes it. I pick it up there, stop over in the Bahamas, and then take it to Florida." 

Jack had her draw a map to show him the route. "So how d'you make money off this?" 

Sarafeena grinned. "That's the fun part. The guy in Florida gives me some money. Half of it's for me for taking it to him, and the other half is to pay the guy that makes it. When I give the money to the guy that makes it, he gives me half of his share for delivering it." She leaned back with a smug smile. "I get three-quarters of the money. Pretty neat, eh?" 

She had to repeat it a few times before Jack could quite grasp the mathematics of the situation (numbers had never been his strong suit) but it sounded like a pretty good idea to him. 


	2. Boats and Cars

Sarafeena wasn't quite sure how Jack had talked her into taking him with her to Miami for a few days. Maybe it was his honeyed tongue and persuasive whispers; maybe it was the ancient rum that tasted like sour marshmallows; maybe it was because she wanted to jump his bones; maybe it was because he was Captain Jack Sparrow. That seemed to be his reason for everything, anyway. 

He had jumped overboard after telling Anna Maria to take care of the ship while he was gone, then swam to the _Flying Weasel_ and flipped himself onboard. Sarafeena had pointed out the ladder, whereupon Jack had given her a blank look. Sarafeena laughed and tossed him a towel. 

Sarafeena docked the boat in a cove off Biscayne Bay and then snapped the device back to 2003. As the time switched back, there was a blinding rainbow flash. The water level fluctuated wildly as the years struggled to get out of the way. 

Eventually the rainbow died down and the water settled. Jack was clinging to the side of the boat, looking as though he would like to get out now, please. Sarafeena had gone through the change many times before, but she remembered the effects of time-lag: the feeling that every single molecule in your body had been violently yanked in many directions at once and then squeezed back into place. 

There were two large men in ill-fitting suits standing on the shore. 

Sarafeena saluted them. "Rhino, Razor. How's tricks?" 

Rhino and Razor did not reply, but stepped about a foot in opposite directions to reveal a short, pudgy, balding man in a tracksuit. He grinned greasily. "Sarafeena sweetie! Glad you could make it." 

"I always can, Leo." Sarafeena didn't like Leo very much. He was an extremely scummy subcontractor who had been chosen as the official drug czar for the city of Miami by one of the mayor's friends. There was enough drug traffic in Miami already, but Leo felt the need to make it even more rampant by buying up several hundred pounds of the highest-grade cocaine that money could buy for his scuzzy circle of friends each week. Most of it he used for bribes. 

Sarafeena dearly wished that she could do business with a nice, honest drug dealer instead of an elected official, but cash was cash and anyway, Daniel's labs were sponsored by this guy. Luckily, he only had a couple more years in office before he'd be replaced by someone else who was a little more serious about the job. 

Leo grinned with obvious delight when he spotted the bales of coke in the back of the boat. "Have I ever told you how very much I like your style, Sara? You know, I could get you a nice cushy government job if you like." 

Sarafeena hated anyone shortening her name. "No thank you, Leo. If you could pay up not, that'd be great, by the way." 

Leo peeled twenty hundred-dollar bills off of a huge wad. "Here ya go, sweetheart." 

Jack propped his head up on the side of the boat. "So this is what passes for money nowadays, hm?" He snatched the fold from Leo and riffled through it. "It's just pieces of paper. There's no heft to it." 

Rhino and Razor moved forward menacingly. Sarafeena grabbed the bills from Jack and tossed them at Leo. "Sorry. Jack," she whispered, "you shouldn't do that. The authorities sort of frown on taking other people's money." 

"Who's this guy?" Leo asked, jerking a thumb at Jack. 

"This is Captain Jack Sparrow of the _Black Pearl_," said Sarafeena. "Jack, this guy is Leo Lansky. He's a government pirate." 

Leo lit up. "Government pirate," he mused. "I kinda like the sound of that." He turned to his bodyguards. "Rhino, remind me to print up some new business cards when I get home." 

"Yes, boss," Rhino rumbled. 

Jack raised his eyebrows in confusion. "Government pirate? Bit of an oxymoron, that." 

Sarafeena reminded herself that Jack came from a simpler time. "Nowadays, most real thieves work for the government," she explained. "Leo is one of the scummiest dogs they employ." 

She left Jack to mull that over while she helped Rhino and Razor load the coke into Leo's SUV. 

Jack was feeling a little under the weather. The trip through time hadn't agreed with him. 

Sarafeena had celebrated the sale by treating Jack to lunch at Carlos Murphy's, a chain restaurant that tried to combine Mexican food with an Irish bar. Jack had been extremely confused by Sarafeena's description of franchises, then decided that it wasn't really any of his business. He did enjoy the margaritas and the oversized burger Sarafeena had ordered for him, though. 

The serving wench—or waitress, as Sarafeena had called her—had been quite attractive, but had dissolved into nervous giggles and then called over the manager when he inquired politely as to her marital status. Sarafeena ended up leaving a huge tip and not waiting for the change as she pulled him out of the restaurant. 

"You don't call them wenches and you don't proposition them," she explained. "Not unless you're really smooth about it, and you weren't." She was clearly regretting her decision to show him the wonders of the 21st century. 

Jack shrugged. It was normal behavior where he came from, and he saw no reason to change it. 

His composure was interrupted by a screeching, four-wheeled thing rushing past. He watched as it disappeared around a corner. "What was that?" 

"A car," said Sarafeena. "Like carriages, only a hell of a lot faster, and no horses. There's a rental place a few blocks from here, and I'm going to get one so that we can get around." 

Sarafeena kept Jack close to her as she scoured the rental lot for an appropriate vehicle. She was looking for one that was at the same time relatively inexpensive and didn't look like it was going to fall apart. She settled on a maroon Taurus. 

Jack, with his unerring instinct for the flashy and expensive, was drooling over a bright red Ferrari. 

Sarafeena smiled. "Yeah, it's nice. But we can't afford it." 

"Who said anything about affording it?" Jack leaned over the side of the car and began prodding the steering wheel. "How do these things work, anyway?" 

"You need keys to make it go, and we're not going to steal it. Stay there, I'm going to get the lease for this Taurus." 

When Sarafeena came back out, keys in hand, Jack was gone. So was the Ferrari. 

"How the fuck did he do that?" she wondered. "He doesn't know how to hotwire a car. He doesn't know anything about cars and he can't even drive." 

"Well," she muttered to herself, "he's Captain Jack fucking Sparrow. He can do whatever the hell he wants, can't he?" 


	3. Pigs and Chicks

Captain Jack Sparrow was having a very, very good time. He had quickly gotten the hang of how to work this vehicle, which seemed to be one of the better models available, and was familiarizing himself with the layout of Miami in the year 2003. 

The town had grown. The last time he had been to Miami, at the tender age of fifteen, it had been a trading settlement in the middle of a swamp. Coffee and bags of coca leaves had changed hands, and the only tavern in town was closed because the bartender was out looking for the Fountain of Youth. Now, the city was even rowdier than Tortuga, alive with lovely young wenches wearing nearly nothing strolling up and down the avenues, pale families in loud shirts and loud people in baggy clothes, shops selling things that had most definitely not been around in Jack's time, and, best of all… 

Hold that thought. 

There was something flashing behind him. Jack turned around to see, then remembered the little mirror that hung on the front of the car that let him see what was behind him without turning around. Ingenious, that. He'd have to get one installed on his hat. 

It was a car, if that was the word. It was blue. There were lights flashing on top of it. There was a man sticking his head out of the window and yelling at him to stop. 

Jack's brow furrowed. Why were they telling him to stop? He couldn't think of any reason. Ah…there was some kind of crest painted on the car. Local law enforcement? Well, he wasn't sticking around to find out. 

Jack stomped on the little pedal that made the car go. He grinned, anticipating the sudden rush of speed and air that would come with the acceleration. Freedom! It was even easier to get nowadays. 

Unfortunately, he crashed right into a parked VW. 

Officer Raymond Stevens was not in the mood for nonsense. He had already had a lousy day, having to deal with an escaped python and a hundred-pound bale of marijuana that had mysteriously crashed through someone's ceiling. All he wanted to do was go back to the precinct house and have a cup of coffee. 

And now he had to deal with this jackass. 

He approached the Ferrari. "Sir, I'm going to have to ask you for your license and registration." Behind him, his partner for the day was fumbling with her sunglasses. 

The guy in the car looked like a scuzzbag, but an interesting scuzzbag. Probably an Ecstasy dealer, judging from the mascara he'd smeared on his face. Not that it was his duty or inclination to bust dealers; this was going to be a simple ticket and nothing more, if he had anything to say about it. 

Alicia Silverman, his partner, tapped him on the shoulder. "Ray, what can I do to help here?" 

"Just stay back. It's just a ticket and an AAA call. I'll handle it." Ray leaned over the side of the Ferrari. "Sir, can I see your license and registration please." 

"What—what did you just call me?" drawled the scuzzbag. 

"Sir can I see your license and registration please," Ray repeated firmly. "Come on, buddy, you know the drill. License and registration." 

Scuzzbag grinned at him. Ray winced. He had really, really horrible teeth. "Don't have it on me, sorry, seem to have misplaced it…" 

Suddenly, Alicia was hanging over the side of the car. "Hey there." 

"What's a lovely lass like you doing in such a dull line of work as law enforcement, then?" Scuzzbag asked her. Ray mentally slapped his forehead. This was no time for Alicia to be flirting. 

Alicia tossed back her blonde hair. "Well, you know, it's just what I do." She giggled a little. "You know, you look a lot like Johnny Depp?" 

"Thass a good thing, then?" 

Alicia winked. "Sure is. In fact, you look so much like him, I'd better have a look at your license just to make sure you're not really him." 

"Ah, there's the thing. I never really, you know, got around to getting one…Sorry to be wasting your time, milady." 

Alicia's eyes narrowed into slits. "Either you show me some kind of personal identification or you're going to jail, sir." 

Scuzzbag sighed and rolled up his sleeve. "Is that good enough for you?" 

"It's a tattoo," Ray said. "Plenty of people have those. So unless you actually have your driver's license tattooed on your arm, which most tattoo parlors won't do—" 

Scuzzbag frowned. "That doesn't mean anything to you?" 

"Sorry, no." 

"Not a thing." 

Scuzzbag leaned back in the driver's seat. "Means I'm Captain Jack Sparrow, mate." 

Sarafeena found a station that was playing Pink Floyd and resigned herself to a long search. As Pink Floyd turned to the Eagles, and the Eagles to Black Sabbath, there was no sign of the commotion that would surely accompany a rambunctious, alcoholic pirate. 

She stopped at a Baja Fresh to get a burrito and review her options. One: She could drive around more looking for Jack. In a city as big as Miami, that could take several days, which she didn't have. Two: She ask people she knew. No. Stupid. Three: She could inquire at police stations and ask for an APB. Again, not a good idea for a cocaine dealer to be bugging the police. Four: She could ask Daniel. 

Sarafeena and Daniel had been dating exclusively all through high school. Their relationship had dissolved into nothingness when Sarafeena took Daniel to a David Bowie concert for a graduation gift and Daniel had been invited backstage without her. Which wouldn't have been too bad in itself, but Daniel had reappeared with smudged rouge all over his torso, white stuff on his jeans, and a glazed smile on his face. It had taken a relatively small effort to put six and nine together. 

Not that she was totally averse to the idea, nor did she not see the reasoning behind it. Daniel was pretty in a girly sort of way, with long flowing brown hair, big eyes, and a peaches-and-cream complexion. In fact, he was cuter than her. She had been more pissed that Daniel, when questioned, had insisted that all they had done was talk about space and eat ice cream. 

But that was twenty years ago, and they were both older and more mature. They had collaborated on a lot of projects, and Daniel would bring up the concept of getting back together from time to time. 

Crap. Daniel it was, then. 


End file.
